My Choice, Your Choice

Personally, I didn’t care much for the way the video was shot, nor the delivery of the copy, but I agreed with the message – that everyone (man or woman) is an individual free to make their choices in life, good or bad, and deal with the repercussions for themselves. And we, with our infinite wisdom and morality, are nobody to judge anyone or label them.

I didn’t want to jump into this mind numbing debate but finally we have a sane voice in the midst of all the hoo-haa. Do read here.

The article addresses every single backlash point that the makers of the video have faced. But the one about the ‘adultery endorsement’ really got my goat.

Can we please stop with the “hawwww” attitude towards the “sex outside of marriage” line. Like quit already. Nobody is endorsing adultery. Nobody. But it IS endorsing the right to make a choice without being labelled. Have the same standards for everyone will you?

I live in the city of Dubai and let me tell you, I see men cheating on their lives alllllll over the goddamn place. And it is hushed and shushed and swept under the rug like it doesn’t happen, or like something one can’t help doing because you know.. “he’s a guy, he got bored, he wasn’t happy”… or the favourite party line – “boys will be boys”… or even “haha we went to bangkok/vegas and what happened there stays there because we are cool, fun boys and we had all the fun we are meant to have” without being called assholes. But the minute we hear of a woman cheating on her husband, “OMG :-O she’s such a slut”. Quit with the labels. And if you really can’t, then brand him a slut too, and stop talking to him too.

I told my friend this about a year ago when I first became aware of the number of men around here who cheat on their wives. I wondered how one could even be friends with such people because I know that if ANY of my friends cheated on their spouse, I would immediately let them know what I think of their actions, and cut ties with them, man or woman, I don’t care. I cannot be friends with someone who would cheat on someone they had pledged their undying love and life-long faithfulness to. If such a human being can cheat on their life partner aka family, who knows what they would do to you, a mere friend.

Actually I don’t think I could say it any better than she already did in the article I shared above – “Indian men outraging over a woman choosing to be adulterous. If hypocrisy could blow itself off, this one would be a nuclear bomb.”

Nuclear bomb indeed!

I really just watched the video the day it came out and went about my life. But it was only after it started facing backlash of such epic proportions that I went into a WTF mode. I related to a lot of the statements because I have been in situations where I know people are judging me because I have a mind and an opinion and a way of living my life by my own standards. And sometimes it has made me laugh, and sometimes it has made me angry, that people just can’t seem to go about their business of being awesome in their own lives via their own actions and achievements, and feel the need to try and bring someone else down who is just living their life the way they want to or need to live it.

Read the text carefully people:

My body, my mind, my choice

To wear the clothes I like; even if my spirit roams naked

My choice; to be a size 0 or a size 15

They don’t have a size for my spirit, and never will

To use cotton and silk to trap my soul is to believe that you can halt the expansion of the universe

Or capture sunlight in the palm of your hand

Your mind is caged, let it free

My body is not

Let it be

My choice

To marry, or not to marry

To have sex before marriage, to have sex out of marriage, or to not have sex

My choice

To love temporarily, or to lust forever

My choice

To love a man, or a woman, or both

Remember; you are my choice, I’m not your privilege

The bindi on my forehead, the ring on my finger, adding your surname to mine, they’re all ornaments and can be replaced

My love for you cannot, so treasure that

My choice; to come home when I want

Don’t be upset if I come home at 4am

Don’t be fooled if I come home at 6pm,

My choice; to have your baby or not

To pick you from 7 billion choices or not

So don’t get cocky

My pleasure might be your pain

My songs, your noise

My order, your anarchy

Your sins, my virtues

My choices are like my fingerprints

They make me unique

I am the tree of the forest

I am the snowflake not the snowfall

You are the snowflake

Wake up

Get out of the shit storm

Choose to empathise

Or to be indifferent

I choose to be different

I am the universe

Infinite in every direction

This is my choice.

Every comedian and every wise-ass spoof maker who’s made a rebuttal video, let’s get one thing straight – you probably just saw an opportunity to get more hits on your You Tube channel and jumped right at it or whatever, but the truth is you’ve lost your way man. You may consider yourself to be this super progressive man of today but what you’ve just gone and done with your regressive spoof video is take down a good, well intended message – more equality, less hypocrisy, less labels. Living and letting live.

Think about that tonight while you’re having your dinner made by your loving mom, or your loving wife.